Garbage In, Profits Out?

I've had reason to think about garbage a bit recently, and that resulted in an idea. I don't know if it's a good idea or not, but it's an idea.

Why have I been thinking about garbage recently?

Prior to buying the new house, we rented, on a fairly standard residential street. Right on the edge between being "suburban" and "rural," in that the lots are large (an acre) and so it's not especially densely populated, but it's a pave street with frontages not far from the homes. So we had "garbage service." It was built into our lease (the obvious reason being that the landlord didn't want cheapskates just piling their garbage out back and leaving it).

Now that we own, the system looks like this:

You can have garbage pickup priced into the property tax bill every year. It's about $300 a year for a standard residential size dumpster cart.

Or, with an  ID/driver's license linked to an Alachua County address, you can just take your garbage directly to the dump with no "tipping fee."

We elected not to pay for pickup, because instead of a real residential street we live on, more or less, a game trail (some dirt/sand ruts generously given a street name), and in order to have the stuff picked up, we'd have to drag it a good quarter mile to the nearest paved road.

We were going to just make a trip to the dump once a month -- it's only about five miles away -- but haven't had to yet, because one of my daughter's employers said "hey, we always have extra room in our dumpster, just bring a bag of garbage and/or recycling here each day you work, no problem." That keeps us pretty much caught up. We may make a trip or two to the dump each year if we have e.g. large appliances that lie down and die or whatever, but for the most part we're good.

That got me thinking, though:

There are a lot of people in this area who live on crappy rural "roads" (some of them shouldn't even be called that), and who have to either haul their stuff to the dump or drag it a significant distance for pickup.

Or, and I see this happen, quite a few of them seem to just "small bag" their trash --  every time they buy gas or stop at a convenience store, they drop it in the trash cans there. I'll see people pulling four or five plastic grocery bags out of their cars and cramming them in while they're parked next to the pump. It seems like a bit of a bother, but if it saves them $300 a year or having to go out of their way to the landfill, I get it.

I suspect most of the people in the area who live in "a pain in the ass to deal with pickup" areas still actually shop for groceries instead of having everything delivered.

And I suspect Walmart at least, maybe Publix and others, produce enough waste that they already run their own fleets of trucks to haul dumpsters to the landfill instead of just contracting that out.

So, why not use garbage disposal to attract customers?

Set up a dumpster system with a scanner. When a customer pulls up and scans a receipt from the store (maybe there's a minimum purchase requirement), the dumpster unlocks and they throw your trash in there. Not a little plastic grocery bag, a real full-size trash bag.

Since the big stores are presumably already invested in the infrastructure -- dumpsters, trucks, and people to do the hauling -- it's just a matter of scaling up some and creating a payment system (the payment being "you shopped here").

For some customers, being able to just drop their trash off when they shop instead of paying the county, visiting the dump, dragging dumpsters over long distances, etc. might well make the difference when they where to buy groceries.

Would that "pay for itself" and then some in terms of increased store patronization/profits? I think it might.

That Thing I Mentioned Yesterday

Reader Morey Straus did the work -- I just think it's a great thing and want to promote it. The site is headed Mavericks and Sycophants, and what it measures is  "how often a member [of Congress] breaks from bipartisan agreement — the moments when the Borg collectively wants a Yea, and someone votes No anyway."

The big takeaway from the data is independence of party leadership: How often a US Representative or US Senator says "the party leader/whip say everyone has to vote X, but fuck that, I'm voting Y."

The designations are a range running from "mindless drone" to "lone wolf."

Interestingly:

In the House, the Democratic Party has absolutely none of the two most "independent" categories, "Rebellious Streak" and "Lone Wolf," while the Republicans have 11 "Rebellious Streak" and one "Lone Wolf" (you can probably guess that last one). "The Squad" makes a lot of noise but doesn't really color outside their party's line to any great degree. 

But in the Senate, it's the other way around -- the Democrats have nine "Rebellious Streak" and four "Lone Wolf" Senators who frequently buck party leadership demands, while the Republicans have a grand total of one in either category, a "Lone Wolf" whose identity you can probably also guess.

There are probably clues in this data as to differences in party organizational dynamics, how campaigns get funded/supported (or killed), etc.

And the bottom line on individual congresscritters is that you can tell how often "yours" votes in the interests of his or her party organization versus maybe ... just maybe ... "representing" something else (maybe your desires, but more likely his or her own desires or the desires of the lobbyists offering the best cocktail parties, junkets, paper bags with cash, etc.).

Enjoy -- and thanks for doing this, Morey!

Wordle 1724 Hint

Hint: You'll want to hurry through today's Wordle, unless you need a break to eat some cornmeal pudding.

Not Enough? Get the first letter of today's Wordle after the ad below.

New to Wordle? You can play it at the New York Times, and here are some thoughts on how I go about solving each day's puzzle.

First Letter: H